The Silver Lining
by silhouettedredoblivion
Summary: Shortly after the death of Berlin, Lizzie and Red's relationship becomes nothing short of complicated. Fighting the push and pull of their connection, Lizzie makes a life-altering decision that could very well change the course of their partnership and their relationship forever. AU/Eventual Lizzington.
1. Chapter 1

**Shortly after the death of Berlin, Lizzie and Red's relationship becomes nothing short of complicated. Fighting the push and pull of their connection, Lizzie makes a life-altering decision that could very well change the course of their partnership and their relationship forever. AU/Eventual Lizzington.**

_**Disclaimer**_: _I do not own The Blacklist and am not affiliated with them in any way. However, if Spader's ass was offered to me illegally or otherwise, I could not make any promises! XD_

_Song lyrics courtesy of Live-Lightning Crashes_

_Title of Chapter 1 provided by the song Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie_

**A/N : **So, you guys this is my VERY FIRST Blacklist fanfic, and very first fanfic EVER that I have had any inspiration to keep working on in order to post. Please leave me a review! I am open to suggestions and/or criticisms (it has been a very long while since I have written anything other than college papers, and that was over a year ago)! Let me know how it's going! I am a great lover of music, so needless to say, song lyrics have helped bring out the better part of my writing. I have a VERY good idea as to where this fic is going, but please don't be thwarted by the end of this chapter because, I assure you, it gets better I will try to update at least by the end of next week or possibly sooner!

RATED T, Although later chapters could possibly change to M.

This story is dedicated to FrostyFingers! Thanks for the kind words of encouragement sweety! :)

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

**Pushing Down on Me, Pushing Down on You**

_**FLASHFORWARD**_

_**Baltimore, MD**_

_**December, 2015**_

_Oh I feel it, coming back again_

_Like a rolling thunder chasing the wind_

_Forces pullin' from the center of the Earth again_

_I can feel it_

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><p>Elizabeth Keen stood stoic and nearly catatonic in the expanse of a cavernous home just on the outskirts of Baltimore. The throbbing in her head felt like a church bell being rung endless times in its steeple, her pulse electrically surging throughout her quaking limbs and torso. Her heartbeat was thrumming so fast that she kept thinking she could very well have a damn heart attack right here and now. Her veins were visibly protruding from her clammy skin, breathing so erratically that she felt like she needed to be on a ventilator to keep her lungs from collapsing. Her entire body was betraying her. She began to see little shiny particles skidding about her peripheral vision due to the white-hot rage swelling inside of her chest. She sought to steady her government-issued nine millimeter as sweat drizzled down from her brow and stinging her eyes, but to no avail.<p>

Lizzie had confronted him yet again at one of his many safe houses within the area, but this time, both were anticipating a very contrasting outcome. She had not reacted with such rash emotion like this since Berlin had reared his head and she had shot her façade of a husband.

Standing abruptly from his tall-backed armchair as she burst into the room, he positions himself in front of her, attempting to read her expressionless eyes as she pointed the gun directly at him. The barrel mere inches from his anxiety-addled face. That is when he knew; he knew she had found out the truth, and she was here to put an end to his miserable life. It was not imperative to him how she came about this knowledge; all that mattered was that his time as an FBI informant and their partnership had run out. With his skill set and military background, he could have taken the firearm from her effortlessly as soon as she had pulled it from its holster. He did no such thing, because he knew in his heart that this had been the type of demise he had earned. He was not scared at the idea of death. No. Raymond Reddington accepted long ago that he would perhaps die at the hands of someone whom he had crossed in the criminal world, or someone associated with any number of government agencies around the globe. He was terrified at the thought that _his _Lizzie could be the one to pull the trigger in the end. He realized that being gunned down by the person he loved most in this world had been his destiny all along. Lady luck and karma truly did adore him.

It was too much. Lizzie's cup was running over. When she had found out the blanketed truth of her past earlier that day, she feared he truly was the monster she had so desperately hoped did not exist. All she knew was Red was involved, along with several others who remained unbeknownst to her. She knew not the events that took place, nor the cause of what occurred that fateful night so long ago.

She was, after all, the most unpredictable and volatile woman he had ever encountered in his colorful misadventures. He understood her decision, respected it even, if she chose to put an end to his life. For what seemed like an eternal passage of time, Lizzie teases the trigger with her right index finger without putting considerable pressure on it. Red holds his hands out toward her, palms up, in an effort to show he was not about to dissuade her from doing what she came here to do. The circumstances were far from negotiable in his eyes. He made no effort to talk her down, which only added to Lizzie's rage. Red was not surprised at how quickly their relationship had taken a drastic and unmistakable deadly turn far off into the wide yonder, and wondered if there was a way to course-correct. However, that did not stop the heartbreak from manifesting itself in his troubled eyes. His brain never switched off, always thinking, calculating, evaluating a situation and the best course of action to take to make it out alive. It was something that came involuntarily, something that was completely natural and could not be prevented.

The guilt he has carried with him all these years had twisted him up inside, belying all of the idealistic and intimidating views his business associates and cohorts have of him. No one, except for Sam Milhoan, has ever caught a glimpse of that shame he so longed to make right. Red has forever been a man of self-control and discipline, earning him a tremendous reputation purveying that image, as well as striking fear into the hearts of his enemies with a single glance. But, at this very moment, Raymond Reddington believes he is going to meet his comeuppance by a woman who may very well be considered his Alpha and Omega following the events of tonight.

Red takes a ragged breath as his eyes slide shut and lowers his head to the barrel of the gun, and a single tear drizzles down his face at the thought of the damage he has wrought on Lizzie's heart since the commencement of becoming The Concierge of Crime. He has always looked upon her with such love and adoration. He could love her with the wild abandon of two newly established lovers in the throes of an affair, if she ever allowed him such an honor. But, it would contrast to that of a menial affair. He would be her king and she, his queen, and he would treat her as if she hung the moon and stars, doing all but groveling at her feet. He yearned to pull her into his embrace and comfort her. Desiring so much to rub and kiss the pain away with every stroke of his hand and every kiss he could place on her cheeks and head. She was past the point of wanting comfort. Now, all Elizabeth Keen wanted was answers.

Lizzie's hands began to tremble at the very idea of putting a bullet in his head. The air wafting around them crackled with tension, bursting with a silence that was deafening. She had grown to love the man whom she was confronting with murder. Red had been her cornerstone, her confidant, her friend, and the only person she had ever actually trusted with her life since this journey had begun two years ago. She had been in denial for so long that she was actually in love with the man whom was number four on the FBI's Most Wanted List. Suppressing that love had done nothing but cause her more pain. She knew that she should not feel such things for him, but she did. Her moral compass was already faltering, so what the hell, why not? She wanted his undivided attention this time, and by God, she had it.

Her throat was abnormally dry as she began to speak, "Why Red, _why_? Convince me! Tell me something, _anything,_ that is not complete bullshit!" The longer she spoke, the more her voice became strained and inaudible, evidence of the heartache welling up inside of her- making its way from the pit of her gut to the bottom of her sandpaper throat. "Change my mind. Tell me!" Her voice breaking near the end as she pleaded with him.

While her voice grew louder and echoed throughout the high cathedral ceilings, Dembe rushed into the room with vigor, realizing the confrontation between his employer and Agent Keen was turning from bad to worse. Red peered behind Lizzie to look at the Sudanese man, jutting out his firm jaw and shaking his head side to side adamantly, discouraging Dembe from getting involved in their dispute. Knowing Red could handle himself regardless of the escalating state of affairs, Dembe simply nods, craning his head around to glance at Lizzie once last time before exiting the spacious sitting area.

Lizzie wanted a reason to release the bullet from its chamber and find its intended target so she could put all of this behind her once and for all. Instinctually she knew deep down at the core of her being that she could never kill this man. However, Red was convinced she was going to follow through with it. After all, look at all the hell she herself had wrought over the past year, evidence coinciding with a woman scorned past the point of no return. She had held Tom prisoner for months to extract information on Berlin. Then, to Red's surprise, Lizzie wound up shooting Berlin in cold blood in an abandoned church just outside of Alexandria before Red could finish the job. It was important to Lizzie, that the man responsible for inserting Tom into her life was punished to the fullest extent of whatever twisted dissolute values she now held. What she had not known at the time, was that this web of conspiracy extended so far and wide, that it went above and beyond Alan Fitch's involvement. This was some scheming shit that stretched as high up as the Pentagon, the White House, and the United Nations, involving some of the most prominent and powerful political figures to ever exist.

Red had never seen so much malice and heartbreak in her eyes. He had witnessed her nearly spiraling emotionally out of control once she confronted him about Sam's death, but this was light-years away from what he had observed back then. He knew he should not have let himself fall in love with her, but there it was. Red had vowed to Sam that he would protect Lizzie by any means necessary, which also meant shielding her from his own self most of all. He felt like he had broken said vow after his feelings turned undeniably romantic for her after the death of Berlin nearly eight months ago.

Instead of backing away from her, Red moved toward her with his hands still raised, closing the distance between them. Invading her personal space had been a habit of his for quite some time, but in this moment, it is meant to instill comfort. "I understand, Lizzie." He opened his eyes to see her baby blue orbs piercing into his, and saw a wave of bewilderment immediately wash over her face. Lizzie clinched her teeth together in a display of frustration and hurt, gripping the gun so tightly she could not feel her knuckles. As Lizzie tilted her head from side to side, Red could see that his words had fallen on deaf ears. She was fighting back the urge to scream at this point by chewing on the inside of her lip. All she could taste was the metallic tinge of blood flooding throughout her mouth.

"But, I want you to know something before you do this. " His tongue snaked out to wet his lips in an attempt to make what was to follow more comprehensible. "I have been wandering around for over the past two decades, praying that I would feel a modicum of relief from the guilt I carry because of what happened that night. And do you know what? The instant you walked down those steps in the Post Office, meeting me for the first time, all I could think of was how vindictive of a man I truly was Lizzie. I have attempted to right my wrongs, especially with you, but I cannot go back and change what happened that night. One thing I do know is this: you have every right to pull that trigger. I don't expect any less from you."

She stays silent as her gaze never falters from his, and tears begin to well underneath her disdain. Lizzie's gun stays trained on him, as if she were expecting him to flee. She breathes out heavily, and in fits and starts, she finally speaks, "She was only two years old! _Two_, you bastard! She died that night because of you!" She says as she shakes the gun in his direction, as if to emphasize the magnitude of her words.

"Lizzie, I understand your need for justice, in any form of the word. I wish I could have done more, _should _have done more but-the place was beginning to cave and-"

Choking back sob after sob hearing his words, her lips turned up into a crinkled frown. She closes her eyes so tightly that after she reopens them, she sees bright white floaters that sputter here and there, briefly interfering with her vision. Lizzie interrupts, "And please tell me, who all was involved, hmm? I want the names of those responsible! Whose fucking fault was it the house was coming down in the first place?"

"Mine."

He says it with such finality, like the closing of a book. They exchange glances, Liz being hesitant and careful as to what to say next, willfully thinking about the fraught action she was taking to get answers out of Red. Lizzie was aware that more than one party was responsible, according to the intel she had received from Tom, following her nearly beating him to death with a lead pipe. After she had finally caved and confessed to Red about holding Tom captive, Red took him to an undisclosed location and put him out of his misery. Lizzie never questioned what Red did with him. Truth be told, she did not want to know. She was better off leaving that part of her life void of answers that could hinder her already sleepless nights. Red cocks his head sideways. "And it wasn't a house", he says as he looks down at his custom auburn leather dress shoes, attempting to settle the tidal wave that has stirred his trepidations.

She furrows her eyebrows in confusion. She could not believe he would take sole responsibility for this horrid act. That is how deep his love for her ran. He would die a million times over for her, in the most heinous of ways if it meant bringing her any sort of solace. What is more, is the fact he tells her it was not a 'house' that burned to the ground. Lizzie grows impatient, shifting her weight from her right foot to her left. Suddenly aware of the shuffling sound her black slacks are making during her movements.

He looks at her with tear-filled eyes, and they plead with her to comprehend how much he cares for her. His next words come out very gently, almost cathartically. "If you could only fathom how much I love you, Lizzie. And how much I have hoped for you to have a normal life. I knew it would never be with me, but what I have sought after has never been relevant. What matters is you being able to persevere, and finally live your life happily, without death and destruction being at the forefront, and be with a man who is worthy of you. So, if you are going to be the one who does me in, then so be it, because I know it is what is just and right. And if it will bring you closure, then I want more than anything for you to pull that trigger." She glares at him, hands still quivering, and rivulets of tears persistently streaming down her flushed cheeks. "Tell me what happened that night, Red. I need to kn—I HAVE to know. No more games. No more half-truths and deflecting my questions."

Red sighs with frustration, turning up his eyebrows and smirking, knowing Lizzie will never give up the fight to hear the truth. _Relentless_ _and fierce_, he thinks. He expects nothing less from _his_ Lizzie. He peers out of the small circular window resembling a porthole situated just to the right of his head, and turns back to give Lizzie a slight nod. Lowering his hands that were situated in front of her face in surrender, the skin under his left eye twitches just a bit. His body showing little telltale signs of a weakness he is not even consciously aware of - preparing itself for what is to come.

**A/N:** So what do you guys think? I was going for so many things in this chapter, and tweaked it to death over the course of a month but I decided to give my 4th draft a shot. I know it probably isn't as exciting to read as it was in my head but I really am hopeful about the future chapters to come! This will be a mult-chapter fic, and there will definitely be more to come, so thanks for tuning in and drop me a review if you have time!


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer_**: _I do not own The Blacklist and am not affiliated with them or NBC in any way._

_Song lyrics courtesy of __**OneRepublic – Come Home**_

_Title of Chapter Two provided by __**Tom Odell - Heal**_

**A/N:** So, here we go again! My projected posting date for this chapter was like a hella long time off since RL hasn't been treating me well, but I was finally able to get to it. Oh and just so no one becomes confused, this fic is AU after Season 2 Episode 7. I want to give a HUGE THANK YOU for all of the reviews/followers/favorites! You guys have completely blown me away! Special thanks to **FrostyFingers, hestia-Prytaneum, and momonigiri**! You gals are amazing, and have been absolutely wonderful in inspiring me to keep going! Your words of encouragement have meant everything to me and I could NOT have done it without ya'll! I am not the greatest at phrasing scientific terminology, so bare with me, those of you who see any mistakes I have made who are scientifically knowledgeable lol. I could kick my own tail for not paying more attention in science class, but that part of the story I had to leave in because it felt different and unexpected. I am going to give a fair **warning **here that there is a mention of violence to children in this chapter so if you would rather avoid reading such things, you may want to skip this one (also a few curse words). There isn't anything graphic in this chapter, just the reference of children dying, but nothing detailed, so I thought I would warn you first. Anyway, hopefully it's not too bad, but I don't think this chapter is my best work as it is. I hope you all can look past all of that and try to enjoy it anyway! Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Rated T, will change to M in later chapters.

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

**Take My Mind, and Take My Pain**

**_FLASHFORWARD (cont'd)_**

**_Baltimore, MD_**

**_December 2015_**

_Hello world, hope you're listening,_

_Forgive me if I'm young, and speaking out of turn._

_But there's someone I've been missing,_

_And I think that they could be, the better half of me._

_They're in the wrong place, trying to make it right,_

_But I'm tired of justifying._

_So I say to you, come home, come home,_

_Cause I've been waiting for you, for so long, for so long._

_And right now there's a war between the vanities,_

_But all I see is __**you**__ and __**me**__._

**_And the fight for you is all I've ever known,_**

_So come home._

_Everything I can't be, Is everything you should be_

_That's why __**I need you here**__._

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><p>"I cannot tell you everything Lizzie. Some of the details of what transpired that day I truly do hope you never come to find out. And you know that as far as your biological father is concerned, his identity must remain unknown. Even though I saw him die that night, his . . . devoted associates would more than likely locate you. I <em>refuse<em> to pull you further into the fray . . . into my side of things, because this? This could expose you, and put you in an even more precarious position with your colleagues at the FBI, and unquestionably, far more danger than you could possibly foresee." Lizzie nods a bit, still keeping a fierce grasp on her weapon. She opens her mouth in a false start, then slams it shut so tightly her teeth clash together. She wants to say that she understands, that it is logical to keep some of the details buried, particularly her father's identity. She doesn't. Because she cannot fathom the sort of man he could possibly be. If Red is disinclined to enlighten Lizzie of who he is after all of the mayhem she has witnessed and even been the focus of, then he must be a breed of beast she hopes to never encounter.

Red shuffles backward to place some space between them, still observing her indignant aura as he does it. Lizzie does not object, but keeps her gun shakily aimed at him all the same. She stays frozen in place, not daring to move or even shift her stance. He needs to give her a temporary break from his proximity, hoping that it would abate her fractured psyche. His calves bump into the large armchair, and he opts to sit as he tells the story. He stays suspended in silence when he feels sweat begin to speckle across his forehead, his chest tightening like an overfilled balloon.

"I cannot . . . _lose_ . . . _you_, Lizzie." Red says as he blows out a gust of hot air. Shaking his head slowly while he ogles at the tiled floor, he looks as if he has witnessed something unexplainable. Batting his eyelashes profusely to withhold unshed tears, he attempts to drive the notion from his mind, but it refuses to depart. Merely visualizing his life void of her makes him experience a jagged pinch of heartache in his gullet, dread slicing through him like Excalibur's sword. He grips both arms of the chair firmly, afraid to let go, in fear of teetering over the precipice and barreling into the sea of anguish. He knows that he would become hollow. Barren. A shell. Soulless, if he ever lost her. He recognizes that she is responsible for the last shred of humanity that resides within him. Without Lizzie, he would just be the outline of a human being. One-dimensional.

Lizzie does not utter a word; she only affixes herself to the laden circumference of their current predicament. Hearing him say such things launches her frontal lobe into a tailspin as it sends shockwaves of warmth and pain into her chest; juxtaposing in the deep recesses of her heart.

She mentally glances into the rolodex of times Red has spoken tender words of endearment. She specifically recalls the day in the park when he said, "_None of it is worse than losing you_". She remembers standing there, confounded by his . . . confession? Plea? Ploy? She was unsure. His words baffled her at the time, and were as perplexing as the man himself was. In that moment, his poker face held fast, not allowing what he was experiencing on the inside to be discernible on the surface.

Except this time, he was visibly distraught by the thought of losing her. A euphoric wave of an epiphany washes over her while her palms start to get sticky with moisture. She is bum rushed by a string of thoughts that begin to cloud her judgment of the present. _Is he in love with me? And if so, why hasn't he ever just come out and confessed it to me?_ Perhaps it is because being willing to sacrifice your life for someone every waking moment was a declaration of the most selfless, wholesome, eternal love in and of itself.

He was also an infuriating, incorrigible, and an undeniably dubious species of man. She found him unacceptably irritating with his methods of deflection and his change of conversational pace. Red was also a walking-talking-breathing incongruence who could crawl beneath her skin and make her desperately want to slap him and kiss him instantaneously. She discerns that comparing him to the likes of a snake that was shedding its skin each season is an adequate assessment, a continuous evolutionary process. Spending as much time as they had together over the past few years, Lizzie has seen more and more of Raymond Reddington, the man, rather than Red, The Concierge of Crime.

Red places an apprehensive hand on the back of his head, stroking against the grain of the bristly blond hairs there, fluttering his eyes shut as he does it. The short length of his hair had been a necessity in recent years, since being a top-class criminal came with expectancies of a sharp image. It was also out of the convenience of not having to be bothered with any certain kind of hairstyle. He had begun balding considerably around six years ago, and felt that keeping it long would not be eye-catching to his meticulous variety of females. The texture alone appears to ease his mounting ruminations of how to advance his elucidation of the events. If only for a moment.

Lizzie's insides undergo a swirling sensation, feeling as if someone shook the hell out of a snow globe and she was unanchored inside of it. She looks at him like she has the ability to burn holes through solid matter. He leans back to sit upright in the chair, straightening the crinkles in his vest as he obtains a resonant lungful of air before he proceeds.

"However, I will tell you what I'm able. I have never lied to you, nor will I ever so I'm sure that you can and will fill in the blanks eventually."

Surrendering himself once more to Elizabeth Keen, Raymond Reddington commences his story of the events that transpired on a cold November night twenty-five years ago.

"After I had spent a fair amount of time in Naval Intelligence, I moved on to other . . . things. I was contacted by an associate of mine, who was attached to a government agency, and he offered me the chance to make a sizeable sum of money to collaborate with a few scientists involved in a genetic research project. It sounded alluring, and I just thought 'What the hell, I could always use more money'. They knew my, what some would classify as, 'talents', far exceeded the limitations of a typical human being. So, they thought I could shed some light on some of the responses of the test subjects. I was told that the types of stimuli used were irrelevant. They still wanted my contribution although I didn't have all of the necessary information in front of me. It was like filling out an extremely vague questionnaire. I had to gain their trust, you see, in order to be given any more info. The purpose of these experiments was to alter the normal genetic processes of the brain in order to create the ideal precision instrument of destruction in portable form; the perfect killer, as it were. I didn't discover what the tests entailed until after the trials had been going on for a few months. What I was also unaware of, was that children were being used in these experiments. It was the culmination of _nightmares_, Lizzie."

Lizzie's gaping maw made its presence known. The face she was making was one of disbelief. If it were not for such a dark moment, Red would have wittingly made sport of her under different circumstances. With every breath she took, less and less oxygen made its way to her brain in order to stay conscious. Her constricted panting reinforces the panic that settles into her nervous system.

Red took note of Lizzie's immediate physical changes, but knew he had to keep going.

"In order for them to gather reliable statistical data, they needed approximately ten "special" children so the samples would be large enough to reach a conclusion as to which ones were susceptible. They believed this would yield them more sufficient answers. There were only two children being used in a control group. You were one of those children. The results were-" He trails off, looking down at his hands, fiddling with a small hangnail that has been aggravating him for days. Twitching his lips and jutting out his jaw, he proceeds with the word for which he was searching.

"Catastrophic."

"Catastrophic for whom?"

"For all of us."

She already knows the fate of the researchers. Why it was never documented, reported, or historically noted in any form. They all met the wrath of a man that was of biblical proportions.

"Upon learning this information, realizing the sort of tests and trials they were facing, something inside me cracked. It was like my conscience buckled on the spot. They were children, Lizzie. _Innocent babies._ Some as young as two and three years old, as you have probably pieced together, since your sister was also a part of the experiment", he affirms while lifting his eyes to her watery, bloodshot sockets. His tone drops into the lowest of octaves as he grinds his teeth together in anger.

Lizzie puts substantial force on the trigger this time, nearly releasing the bullet from the barrel. Her shaking becomes uncontrollable as her eyes dilate to the nearly the size of quarters, her muscles contracting and shuddering involuntarily. She fights to manage her body's outburst, trying to exude strength rather than weakness. Her ire was becoming more than she could handle, but she still makes an effort to show Red that she will not cave at the mention of her little sister.

He continues, "This place was set up similar to Dr. James Covington's laboratory. It had bedrooms, sitting areas, and a kitchen. It was a two-level bunker buried in the ground. The top level was the lab, and the bottom was reminiscent of a college dorm. These children were going to live down there until the trials were completed."

"I don't understand."

"Lizzie, I'm getting there." He does not say it to be sardonic, but rather to reassure her that she is going to get the explanation she came here for.

"The day I discovered the truth, I was in the laboratory. I was able to find a set of filing cabinets containing patient histories and that's when I saw it. The DOB's of each patient's file I opened. I realized then what I was dealing with. I stormed out, confronted the lead scientist in charge of the trials. All hell broke loose. I shoved him into a glass container filled with vials of chemicals. The container. . . fell. . . on top of him. Chemicals mixed. The fire erupted. I ran around like a wild dog, trying to find an extinguisher. I learned later that they had been taken out of the lab the day before to have them replaced with a new type of extinguishing agent. _The irony_. To this day, I still do not understand why the researchers had such flammable chemical agents in their possession."

"The fire must have made its way down into the lower level, because the next thing I heard . . . was . . . uh . . . screaming. _Children _. . . screaming."

He places his elbows on his knees and presses his palms into his face, trying to wipe away the flashing of memories with each stroke.

Red was unraveling.

Unhinged.

A man apart.

Combating the ever-growing lump in her throat, Lizzie yearns to comfort him. She thinks about the countless lonesome nights that Red has likely had disturbing nightmares. Restless nights. Consuming Scotch whiskey until he thought he was on a planet that had been torn from its orbit, spinning out of control. Crying until his tear ducts held no more fluid and were as dry as the Sahara. The suffering he must have endured and _still_ endures is unimaginable, but she is hurting, too. And right now, she is not concerned with anything apart from Red chronicling the happenings of such a serendipitous night of her youth. The hours of darkness that followed, she believes defines every facet of her identity.

"I covered myself as best as I could, and made my way down. All I could see were flames, and smoke. I ran into the bedroom closest to the stairwell."

Red appears as if he is going to be sick, turning pale as cold sweat creases in the lines of his forehead.

"The first thing I noticed was the decor. It was a child's bedroom, no doubt. A young girls'. There were these porcelain dolls throughout with their faces half melted away from the flames that had already made its way into the bedroom. I looked into the corner of the room and . . . there was this—" Girl, he means to say. However, he and Lizzie are both painstakingly aware of the actuality that the little girl was indeed her.

He cannot go on. Red begins sobbing faintly, liquid plummeting down his cheek from his exhausted eyes. He glances down at his large palms, and begins to push himself aloft from the armchair, warily stepping toward Lizzie. Her extremities are beginning to tire from clasping the gun so long, but she maintains her denial to lower it. He comes in such close propinquity of her that Lizzie is forced to curve the firearm inward to direct it at his head. This is the moment Lizzie has been waiting for; what she has been needing to hear.

"—_you_. Clutching your stuffed rabbit for dear life, screaming at the top of your lungs. I picked you up to carry you out, and as I got to the stairs, I heard screams coming from every direction." He pauses, feeling so perturbed by the effect of recalling these memories, his gut clenches as bile gathers in the base of his throat. "I didn't know what to do. By the time I looked behind me, the ceiling had begun to collapse into the hallway. I couldn't get to _any_ of the other children." His voice is so hushed that Lizzie has to strain her ears to hear him, revolving her head a few degrees. She sees how effected he is by what happened decades ago, but she still has many more questions. She cannot think appositely; reality, dreams, and memories all colliding.

Despite it all, Red stretches his gentle hand to tuck a strand of loose brown hair behind Lizzie's ear, then cups the left side of her tear-blotched face. "I took you out to safety, and then ran back in. I was nearly killed trying to reach the other kids. I was willing to do whatever it took, but in the end . . . they were . . . gone." Lizzie reaches up with her free hand in an attempt to remove his palm from her face. She hesitates, then thinks better of it and leaves it there.

"A ceiling joist fell on top of me on the way back out, trapping me underneath for what seemed like innumerable minutes, but it was only seconds. I managed to crawl out from under it, but not without catching myself on fire." _Wait, Red doesn't have any scars . . . does he? _she contemplates. As if Red was not frustratingly ambiguous enough, his next action impresses upon Lizzie, that he has suddenly implemented extrasensory perception into his ever-growing list of puzzling characteristics. Red backs away from her somewhat, drifting his fingers up to a button on his vest. He unfastens each button swiftly. He gazes into her striking blue orbs, watching her thoughts play out over her facial expressions.

"Wha—"

She cannot even articulate words at the display of Red coming out of his clothes. She moves her lips incessantly, but not one trifling noise leaves the orifice of her face.

Lizzie quirks both eyebrows in befuddlement, wondering what in the hell he is doing. He disrobes from his cotton dress shirt next, then his undershirt. Lizzie swallows hard, uncertain about what she should do. Red just twists up the corners of his mouth in a frown, and turns around to have his back facing her. Lizzie gasps audibly, tilting her head to the side, unconsciously placing her free hand over her mouth in shock. An atlas of mauled, raised skin covers Red's back, from the backside of his upper arms to the base of his spine. Burn scars. _Horrific _burn scars. Red saved her, and his scars were the definitive proof she had been pursuing of what had transpired.

Rivulets of moisture tread down her cheeks as she lowers her head in shame. Her conscience drowns in guilt from what has emerged here tonight.

Now, she understood why Red had taken her to Sam, but it did not make her pain to subside. Her anger is misplaced, but her sorrow is insufferable. Red casually seizes his discarded undershirt he had tossed on the back on the armchair and pulls it over his head to put on.

Lizzie slides her rigid finger off the trigger, flicking her eyelids wildly. He stops his movements, staring at her with tears of his own still running down his face as he approaches her once again. She allows her levee to rupture into resounding moans of torment that could have been heard a county away. She tucks her chin to her chest, pressing upon it so harshly that she wanted it to hurt. Bringing her free hand to her temple and splaying her quivering fingers across her face to hide her puffy eyes, she begins to descend into oblivion.

"_Lizzie_-"

His voice falls to a murmuring tenor, using the gravelly texture of it to his benefit. She squeezes her eyes shut at the raw emotion that is laced within the whisper of her name from his lips. She knows his intentions have always been to protect and care for her whenever no one else ever could. His lulling serves its purpose, and Lizzie lowers her gun in fits and starts, then drops to her knees in front of him. She leans back on her haunches and clutches at her chest, tossing her weapon to the floor. Lizzie quite literally feels her heart shatter into tiny fragments of meaningless debris.

Red crouches down on his hands and knees, mere inches from her. As he warily extends his arms, he hopes that even after all the horrible atrocities of their past, he could still be the one to soothe her while she was in such a disorienting emotional and mental state. Steadily melting into his chest, Lizzie buries her face in his neck and weeps uncontrollably.

"Lizzie, I am sorry. _So_ sorry. If I could go back and sacrifice my life for each one of those children, God knows I would." He knows the words themselves sound empty, cliché even, and he could be misconstrued as the type of man readily wanting to say them after such traumatic times. But, he _means_ them. He pulls her closer to him as Lizzie grasps at his undershirt tightly. Something to hold onto. Something real and unfaltering. _Someone_ she knows cares about her.

Red cradles her in his lap, running his fingers through her russet-colored hair and over her arms. He rocks her gently back and forth to console her. Thoughts begin to sharply press upon his mind as his fingertips make contact with the scar on her wrist. _How long I have waited to hold her like this, to touch her and feel her like this . . . do not take advantage of the situation, she is hurting and needs you to comfort her, nothing more. _ He places soft kisses on both of her tear-swollen eyelids, using his thumb to wipe the wetness away. After she settles down a few beats later, she speaks without making eye contact, timorously refusing to lift her eyes to meet his pinpointing gaze.

"I know that you care about me, Red. But love comes in many forms. Are you _in_ love with me?" Her voice is so low, she wonders to herself if she is even speaking at all.

She had been in denial since the beginning about how much she truly cared for him, pushing feelings she could not characterize away as they would bubble up while she would be in his presence. Some days, she would catch herself lost in her own musings of him while standing in The Post Office, pretending to appear attentive and eager as she listened to Cooper and Ressler drone on about a current Blacklister. The push and pull of the kinetic forces behind their love was complicated, but clear.

"Are you serious?" Red asks almost attentively. Lizzie nods ever so slightly. He suspends his words for a brief moment, long enough to shake his head at the absurdity of the question. A sly grin appears that turns up the corners of his lips, allowing a soft sigh of reprieve to escape his mouth.

"I have been in love with you for what has seemed like several lifetimes, Lizzie. Ever since I saw you outside that little corner store in Omaha when you were nineteen. Alba's? I think it was? Ever since that moment, I haven't been able to stop what I began feeling for you." Red's heart begins to thump loudly as the nervousness from his official confession sets in. He is worrying about what Lizzie's response is going to be, and how they will proceed from this day.

"That's when I began to see and feel for you from a different perspective. You were no longer a little girl. You were a woman. A stunning, intelligent, vivacious woman."

She is unresponsive since his answer was nothing short of subtle. Silence hovers between them as Lizzie broods over the actuality that Red has been in the shadows watching over her her entire life. Love can be defined in an infinite amount of ways. Red giving himself up to Anslo Garrick could have been labeled romantic, if the situation had not called for dead allies lying in their midst.

Also, when Lizzie transferred Berlin's money back into its original accounts to keep Red from being murdered in cold blood? That could be classified as love as well. She had shuddered at the thought of losing him that day, so making the decision to put the money back was an easy one. At the time, she did not want him to know that. "_You're an asset I'm charged with protecting. I transferred the money to keep you safe. I was just doing my job"._ Her morality as an agent of the law had gotten in the way. Today, that agent was nowhere to be seen.

"Loving you has been easy. But, being _in_ love with you? Well, that's a different story all together. I have fought for so long to keep my feelings for you at bay, from rising to the surface, but after my little coup with Berlin? I just couldn't deny it any longer, sweetheart. My heart has been telling me one thing, and my mind another."

"And what was that mind of yours telling you?" Lizzie retorts as she tilts her head up to gaze into his stormy green eyes, nearly cutting him off.

Red smiles gleefully and replies, "That I should never let you know how I truly felt. I didn't want to push you even farther into the darkness than you had already traveled. The last thing I wanted to destroy was our professional relationship. I just thought, if I couldn't have you, _all_ of you, then I would just take what I could get and try to be satisfied with that. I am not a greedy man, Lizzie, and I was not about to put you in a compromising position by dropping a bomb on you like that."

Lizzie wraps her arms around his neck, feeling more bold than usual. She raises herself up in order to be eye level with him, leaning forward ever so gradually. She moves in to place a lingering kiss next to his lips, running her fingers along both sides of his face, tracing his five o'clock shadow with her fingertips. The realization of the intimacy of her movements hits Red like a brick wall.

"I have been in love with you from the moment I saw you shackled to that damn chair, Red. I just never knew you felt the same. I thought maybe there was something _wrong_ with me. Me, an FBI Agent falling in love with a man who is not only one of the most wanted men in the world, but a man I had believed to be _biologically related_ to me. I just thought that, mentally, something was off. That I was twisted, and irreparably... fucked up."

Red suddenly stops his movements and grasps Lizzie's arms with his hands gently, pulling her back away from him to get a better look into her eyes. He thought his heart had stopped beating and for a second, Lizzie saw the surprise of her confession in his eyes. It affected him to no end, stopping not on the surface of his heart, but penetrating his very soul. They stare into one another's eyes for what seems like an eternity. Red could not believe what he was hearing. Elizabeth Keen, _his_ Lizzie, loved him, too.

"There is **nothing** wrong with you, nothing at all. Don't think that way, sweetheart." He clears his throat, and feels his heart seize up as he searches Lizzie's face. He does not know why he is so afraid in this instant. Maybe it is just the anticipation of what is to come. "I think it's been a trying day, and you are just emotional. Perhaps you simply feel an obligation to—"

Lizzie cuts him off, "I might be emotional, but I don't feel obligated to you. I have been drawn to you since I met you. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why. It was all just a bundle of emotions and raw nerves, but now, I see it. I see . . . you. You're the reason, Raymond Reddington."

The use of his full name on her lips makes his face light up in a smile that reaches his eyes. Lizzie continues, "I see the man, not the mystique. I see a man who cares for people, who is empathetic, compassionate, and would do _anything_ for those he cares about. I see a man who hurts just like the rest of us. Who is swimming in sorrow and remorse for his past sins and for the people he has lost whom he cared so much for. I also see a man who was unjustly accused of treason. Your dossier? **Everything** in it? It's complete bullshit, isn't it?"

Red grins like the cat that ate the canary. He was beginning to wonder if she would ever figure out that he was framed for treason, and disappeared that night on Christmas Eve to keep his family safe, and not to abandon them. He had in his possession some very damning evidence against some very influential people. Once they had discovered Red had said proof, they made sure he could never live normally again, and that people would recognize him as a wanted criminal. He gently strokes the side of her face, before finally leaning down and whispering into her ear, "That's my girl."

**AN: ** Really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! And again, I do apologize for any terminology I used incorrectly, or if I was too wordy in some parts. At any rate, please leave me a review, LOVE YOU GUYS!


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